TROY – The RPI hockey team began this weekend in 12th place in ECAC Hockey. They left the ice Saturday night with back-to-back victories over nationally ranked teams and alone in seventh place.

The Engineers scored a goal in every period and rode the hot goaltending of freshman Jason Kasdorf (34 saves) to a 3-2 victory over 16th-ranked Cornell in front of 3,550 fans for the first sweep of their central New York foes at Houston Field House since the 1998-99 season.

"It was a huge weekend," said defenseman Nick Bailen, who scored RPI's first goal Saturday and assisted on the first one in Friday's 2-1 win over Colgate. "We needed to make a push this weekend in the league."

Sophomore Mark McGowan scored what ultimately became the game-winner after Cornell pulled goalie Andy Iles for an extra skater and cut the margin to a single goal in the final minute on a Joel Lowry goal. McGowan took a great pass from Ryan Haggerty and placed a seeing-eye shot into the upper right corner of the net from the base of the right circle at 12:14 of the third period to make it 3-1.

RPI jumped out to a quick 1-0 advantage on the first power play of the game. Jacob Laliberte sent a perfect pass through the crease from near the right goal line onto the stick of Bailen at the left post, and he knocked it in at 3:42.

But RPI's first-period momentum quickly was thwarted when Greg Burgdoerfer was called for a five-minute major and game disqualification for boarding at 9:34. Cornell quickly answered when Josh McCarron scored 38 seconds into the power play to make it 1-1, but RPI goalie Jason Kasdorf was a rock the rest of the power play, making 11 saves to mitigate the damage to a single goal.

"We kept getting chance after chance, and we couldn't bury our opportiunities," said Cornell coach Mike Schafer, whose team is 0-2-1 in its past three against RPI. "Our kid made a huge mental mistake right out of the gate to make it 1-0. We just made too many mental mistakes to get the victory. They made the plays and had the poise on that power play. That gave them the victory."

RPI took its second lead with its second power-play goal of the game at 15:27 of the second period. Guy Leboeuf picked up a deflected puck and sent it into the left corner to Matt Neal, who found Haggerty open skating down the left slot. Haggerty, who had an outstanding game, sent home a high drive for his ninth goal of the season and a 2-1 lead.

His pass to McGowan for the third-period goal gave the Engineers some breathing room they hadn't experienced in either game this weekend.

"We just felt that it was coming," RPI coach Seth Appert said of the team's first four-point weekend. "We weren't perfect tonight, but we earned the win. I like our team a lot. We survived that power play, but we weren't very good there. We gave them momentum and let them off the hook in the first. We didn't do a very good job killing that (12 shots). Fortunately, Jason Kasdorf did a very good job of killing that."

The Engineers (3-6-3 ECAC, 8-10-5 overall) have a week off until they take on arch-rival Union in the inaugural Mayor's Cup game at 7:30 next Saturday night at Times Union Center.